


100

by encanta



Series: the vault dweller's survival guide [1]
Category: Fallout 3, Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Abigail is Three Dog, Alana eats an apple, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fallout, F/M, Galaxy News Radio, Gen, Hydroponics, Post-Nuclear War, Science, The Capital Wasteland - Freeform, Washington D.C., Will plays the piano, mentions of psychological torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-24
Updated: 2014-04-26
Packaged: 2018-01-20 14:38:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1514123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/encanta/pseuds/encanta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>alana bloom is the key to project purity, a water purification program that will change the course of post-nuclear history. will graham's going to have to pick more than a few locks to get to her, though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. project purity

**Author's Note:**

> so, ah, this is a little bit of a niche crossover! but i hope you'll give it a chance, even if you haven't played fallout 3/aren't familiar with the fallout universe.

“You’re saying the only hope we have left of making Project Purity a reality is a kid from a vault?”

Will Graham, twenty-eight, sounds incredulous, or as incredulous as one can sound speaking half into a cup of coffee. The Rivet City science lab, always so bustling in the day time, is dead quiet beyond the steady beeps and whirs of their purifiers and other assorted machinery. All those voices all the time and he can barely think, let alone get a word in, so he likes to meet with Jack Crawford, fifty, afterhours where they can relax in the middle of the lab without getting underfoot.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

Jack gets up and heads over to the small refrigerator in the lab, bending down to take out an apple, a product of their state of the art hydroponics program, which he slices and divides between the two of them upon return. Will takes a slice in his palm and stares at it, a rite he does anytime he’s offered something as rare as fresh produce.

Fresh produce is only available here, in their lab on the huge, rusted out aircraft carrier they call Rivet City. He doesn’t know what he’s ever done to deserve something as big as this – non irradiated food – but Will takes a moment every time, like every apple might be his last. It’s something Jack appreciates about him. Not many people in Rivet City have the gratitude that Will Graham has, which is funny, all things considered.

They eat in silence, glad for the absence of the tell-tale pull of nausea that comes from eating irradiated food. Some days, Will can barely stomach it. He eats another apple slice greedily, licking the juice from his lips.

“Tastes like the past,” Jack says chummily, even though they both know that not even their great grandparents had even lived before the Great War. Will hums his assent anyway and tries not to actually think of the past. To him, the apples taste like the present, and, more importantly, they taste like the future. Letting out a slow breath, Will tries to get the topic of conversation back on track.

“This is basically a suicide mission, Jack.”

He could list the reasons, but he’d run out of fingers and toes. Luckily, he doesn’t have to – they’ve known each other for years, and Jack can read the look on his face like a book.

“You’ve done stupider things for less,” he points out, then hands Will the last apple slice. A peace offering, of sorts. “We need her, our team needs her. The Wasteland needs her. It’s worth it, suicide mission or not. And she’s not a kid.”

The kid in question is Alana Bloom, a brilliant young scientist from Vault 100, located some eighty miles northwest of them. The Great War had rendered automobile travel – and everything else, really – obsolete, so the trip would have to be made, to and from, on foot. A suicide mission indeed, given that the Capital Wasteland was crawling with errant raiders, slavers, and Super Mutants, among other things.

Will shakes his head just thinking about it. Getting to Rivet City had almost killed him in the first place. It’s hard for him to believe it’s been almost twelve years since he’d arrived, a then fifteen year old vault kid who’d never known life on the outside.

“Project Purity will change our lives – it’ll change the future,” Jack says, hands closed into fists, bringing Will out of his reverie. He uncurls his fingers from the apple slice and takes a bite, the skin breaking between his teeth with a snap.

“You don’t think I don’t know that?” His voice cracks a little, because god does he know that, okay. He thinks about it every time he leaves Rivet City, every time he drinks irradiated water and pukes his guts up after.

Jack’s resolve, his optimism – they’re comforting. They’re things Will wants to trust in. He wants to trust in Alana Bloom, even though she’s a vault dweller, even though he’s never met her, even though everything they say about her might be a fairy tale.

 _It’ll change the future_.

It’s about time they had a fucking change.

Will sighs, something Jack recognizes as assent, and rubs at his eyes. “Let me hear the holotape again,” he says tiredly, eyes falling shut as he hears Jack push his chair out and get up, heading over to one of the computer terminals. He cues up the holotape and a soft, young voice fills the lab. She speaks quickly, so as not to run out of time to record.

 _“My name is Alana Bloom and I’m a scientist from Vault 100. I have what you need for your project, and I’m willing to help you. But I need your help, too. I can’t make it across the Wasteland myself – I’m not combat trained. And-”_ At this point, the voice on the tape dips so low, she’s just barely able to be heard, _“I don’t think our Overseer would appreciate this…”_

The tape clicks off rather suddenly and Jack glances over at Will, who blinks his eyes open, chin cradled in his hand as he thinks.

“How’d we get this disk?”

“Courier. He was all banged up when he got here, but he managed. A courier’s not gonna get her here in one piece, though.”

Sour silence, and then Will answers.

“She knows a way past the vault airlock, then.”

Jack hums. “Smart kid.”  


“It’s vague,” Will continues, “But it has to be. If the disk fell into the wrong hands, both their vault and Rivet City would be targets.”

He looks at his friend, mouth pulled into a tight line. “Do you really think she has it?”

There are so many things that could go wrong. He could die, after all these years struggling against this unforgiving wasteland. That thought doesn’t stop the tiniest bud of excitement from blooming in Will’s chest, though, because this is the closest they’ve ever been.

Instead of actually answering, Jack just answers his question with a question. “Does this mean you’re going?”

Will sees the shine of the apple skin behind his eyes, glossy red, and hears Alana’s voice in his head. _“I have what you need…”_

“I’ll talk to Beverly and then head out tomorrow,” he says, arms crossed on the table. “You still have that stockpile of Stealth Boys?”

“I do,” Jack replies. “Come by and get them tomorrow.”

He rises then, bidding Will goodnight, before heading out of the lab. Will’s alone with the sounds of the purifier now, and he sits and listens for awhile before heading over to the computer terminal. He loads a copy of the holodisk onto the Pip-Boy information processor shut around his left forearm, then heads to his room down in the lower hull of the carrier.

He strips down to his shorts and climbs into bed, eyes fixed on the ceiling. Usually, the gentle rocking of their home would lull him to sleep, but he’s fairly keyed up from their conversation. Instead, Will turns on his side, yanking the covers up over his body, and listens to the holodisk one last time, letting Alana’s message seep into his head as he nods off.

The empty suitcase in his dream is not comforting.


	2. departure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> three dog, none other than our own princess abigail hobbs. also, timelines for various vault activities are canon divergent and vault 100 is my own fabrication.

Beverly Katz wakes him far earlier than he likes. There’re two quick taps on the door, a pause, and then another, her signature knock picked up from time she’d spent in the Wasteland, and Will’s already rolling over by the time she lets herself in. At least she knocks – Jack rarely gives him the courtesy.

“G’Morning,” he says, sleep still thick in his voice as he sits up and rubs his hands over his face. The glow of his Pip-Boy illuminates the tiny room as he checks the time – 0400 exactly. Leaning toward his bedside, he switches on the small lamp and blinks at Beverly.

Katz, 28, is Rivet City’s lead scientist and the mind behind their hydroponics program. She’s tough as nails with a wry, quick wit, and besides Jack, she’s the only other person he’d trust with his life. Without her, he wouldn’t have even given the idea of traipsing clear across the fucking Wasteland a second thought.

Which is really happening, god. Beverly looks a bit tense, so Will smiles lazily, goading her.

“You look like you’re the one who’s about to hike across the Wasteland for what might be nothing,” he says, crouching down to pull a clean shirt out of his footlocker. He tugs it over his head, glancing at the rucksack in her hands. “Did you pack my lunch for me?”

“Graham, this is serious,” Beverly says, but she’s struggling to keep a straight face. She shoves the rucksack into his arms, then sits down on the chair at his tiny desk.

“Stimpaks, Rad-Away. A bit of food, a bit of water, some ammo. It’s enough to get you there. Hopefully 100 has supplies. There should be some caravans out there, anyway.”

She falls silent, looking pensive. After a couple seconds, she adds, “Just don’t get yourself killed over this, alright?”

Will opens his mouth to crack another joke, a knee-jerk reaction to the magnitude of what he’s about to undertake, but shuts it after second thought. His life is more important to her than the research she’s been doing for years, and for a second he feels crippled with humility.

“I won’t,” he promises, slinging the rucksack over his shoulder. It’s his turn to look pensive. Jack and Beverly know about his past, about the things that happened to him and the other occupants of Vault 92, so when he tells her, “You know I don’t trust Vault-Tec scientists,” her face darkens a little.

“I know, Will. I know.”

“I want to say she sounds sincere, but they sounded sincere, too.”

The ‘they’ he’s referencing are the scientists behind the experimental program that ran in Vault 92. Before the war, great musicians were gathered in the vault in order to preserve their musical talent. It was a delayed program – the vault dwellers were encouraged to procreate for a couple generations before they began their experimentation. Some two hundred years after the first musicians were invited into the vault, Will, his peers, and their parents became unwitting participants in white-noise tests designed to turn them into aggressive super-soldiers. He’d been in one of the practice rooms the first time he’d felt it, his fingers trembling against the keys of the piano as he struggled to remember the next note of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21, a piece he’d known since he was five years old.

The program backfired monumentally – those who succumbed to the experimentation ran rampant through the vault, destroying anyone they came in contact with. Some managed to escape, and at the tender age of thirteen, and having never spent a day outside of his vault, Will stepped out into the Wasteland to begin his new life.

His parents, also brilliant pianists, didn’t make it.

The exposure to the white-noise had left him jumpy and socially withdrawn, two traits that had actually served him fairly well out in the Wasteland, but don’t gain him any points in Rivet City. Jimmy Price and Brian Zeller, also scientists in the lab, can’t stand him. It doesn’t bother Will, but it seems to bother Beverly.

“It’s definitely a gamble,” she agrees, biting her lip. “That’s a Vault-Tec vault for Vault-Tec research. It could be a trap. It probably _is_ a trap.”

“They’re cocky, though. They’d show up outright. She went through a lot of trouble to get us her message.”

There are still so many questions about the whole thing, but seeing as he’s headed to the source of the answers, he’ll just save them.

“Shall we?” he asks, heading to the door. Beverly rises behind him and follows him down the hall, where they take the stairs up to the science lab.

Jack is waiting for them, and Will really wishes one of them would look a little optimistic about this excursion.

“I’ll be back before you know it, with Miss Bloom in tow.” He tries for a smile, then adds, “Get excited about this.”

Jack’s laid his supplies out on one of the tables, and Will’s impressed, really. His weapons – a combat shotgun and a 10mm submachine gun - have been recently maintenanced and there’s a good deal of ammunition for each. As promised, Jack’s also left him some Stealth Boys, devices that will make him nearly invisible to the naked eye. He’ll more than likely need those on the way back from Vault 100.

Will starts to pack the rest of his stuff into his rucksack, then hauls it over his shoulder.

“Bev,” he says, reaching out to give her elbow a squeeze. “See you soon.”

“Yeah,” she replies, her face pinched tight. “Shoot straight, Will.”

He and Jack head out of the lab and out onto the main drag of Rivet City. The guard at the gate swings the bridge out and they walk to the end. A sharp wind’s whipping around them as he breathes in the Wasteland air… this is really happening.

“I’d say four days tops to walk there,” he starts up, because Jack’s fallen stonily silent and it’s really not helping his morale. “It’s gonna take longer to get back with her. If you don’t hear from me in fifteen days, get worried.”

“I’m not worried,” Jack tells him, looking and sounding worried. “Get going so you can get back. We’ll see you soon.”

He claps Will on the shoulder, shaking him a bit, and lets his hand linger a second before pulling away and starting back across the bridge. Will watches Jack retreat, fingers curled around the strap of his rucksack.

Here goes nothing.

*

It wasn’t like the research going on in Rivet City was particularly classified, nor had Alana Bloom, 25, first heard about it from an unlikely source – she’d merely switched on Galaxy News Radio and it’d leapt out at her.

_“Broadcasting live from Galaxy News Radio, this is your host… Three Dog! Awwoooooo! Have you ever seen a tree? A real, live tree? No? I hear some scientists at the Rivet City lab are trying to change that…”_

Which had, of course, piqued her interests, her interests being anything and everything science related.

Vault 100’s current scientific efforts are largely FEV (Forced Evolutionary Virus) mutagenics, because the Super Mutants have become somewhat of a problem in the Wasteland. That’s how their vault overseer, Frederick Chilton, 44, puts it.

‘Somewhat of a problem’ is not exactly how Alana would classify the Super Mutant issue.

‘Definitely a problem’ comes closer. A ‘large, glaring error on the part of Vault-Tec’ hits the nail right on the head.

Actually, there are a lot of things about Vault-Tec that don’t sit quite right with her. Call it her natural intuition, or her paladin-like moral compass. It might also have to do with the secrets passed down, generation to generation, through her bloodline. Alana’s great-great-great-great grandparents had both been Doctors, as well as Future-Tec scientists, a detail that’d been lost to time, save members of her bloodline. It’s knowledge she keeps safe for many reasons, the first and foremost that she trusts Frederick Chilton about as far as she can throw him.

Galaxy News filters quietly through her lab as she tests samples and scribbles notes down, mind not quite on her research as much as it’s out in the Wastes. There’s no way to know if Rivet City ever received her holotape. All she can do is wait… wait and hope that someone shows up to take her away.

Because…

“Miss Bloom.” The voice cuts through her thoughts, reprimand in the tone. She hears the tap of Chilton’s cane on the floor and turns her head, just in time to watch him switch off the radio.

“What have I told you about listening to this garbage while you work? We wouldn’t want you to get distracted, would we?”

His tone is saccharine, just this side of mocking, but Alana keeps her face even before dropping the corners of her mouth in something like an apologetic frown.

“I apologize, Doctor Chilton,” she says, skin crawling internally. He has them call him ‘Doctor,’ despite the fact that their universities had disappeared after the War, along with any ability to earn or issue a degree.

 _‘An asinine formality,’_ their lead scientist, Bedelia du Maurier, 48, had sneered.

Alana had (so, so quietly) agreed with her.

“Sometimes,” she continues, “The quiet just gets to me. I can assure you that my work is undistracted.” She steps aside so he can lean over her notes, eyes bouncing boredly from word to word. She’s not sure he even cares about the work they do so much as he cares about his position as overseer.

“See to it that it remains that way. You’ve seemed very distracted as of late, Miss Bloom. Is there something on your mind?”

He looks at her like he can see right through her, but Alana’s poker face is learned. She shakes her head, smiling politely at him.

“No, sir. Thank you for asking, though.”

The suspicious look doesn’t cede; instead, Chilton just hums, derisive, and heads out of the lab.

Alana sits back down, glancing at her notes.

Distracted, indeed.


End file.
